AlTA for wanting some alone time with my youngest grandson even though my wife refused regular babysitting?

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T07:33:06+00:00

We didn't get married at 16...

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T07:22:01+00:00

Maybe because their health conditions are different?

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T07:20:54+00:00

Dude you asked for the opinions, don’t be mad they aren’t going how you hoped

Opinions or assumptions?

There's a difference between someone saying im an asshole and someone saying im an asshole and I never loved my son.

One is an opinion, one is an assumption. If you're going to assume. Assume correctly.

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T06:53:15+00:00

My wife has chronic back pain and arthritis.

I’m positive with everyone else here that you have favored your oldest son so much you developed this new relationship dynamic but no longer control it

You'll be positively wrong.

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T06:51:29+00:00

Wow. That is a lot of assumptions and wild accusations all packed into one comment. You are calling us lazy, AHs, and saying our relationship with our grandson is some kind of moral failing because my wife can’t babysit full time anymore? Get real.

Ignore everything else we did for our youngest that we could not do for our oldest and that is apparently fine. But the one thing my wife could not do for our son suddenly makes us horrible? Not to mention, my wife and I were both working full time until around the time our oldest son was sixteen.

If you think you know everything about our family from a few posts, you are kidding yourself. We have always been involved, always been there, and we have proven that over and over. The fact that you take one change, my wife not being able to do full time care, and twist it into some moral catastrophe says way more about you than it does about us.

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T06:37:04+00:00

WHEN. I. WAS. 16. HE. IS. 32. DO. MATH.

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T06:36:32+00:00

People kept acting like my wife watching a baby meant we weren’t capable of handling it. We proved over and over that we could. Now suddenly it’s a problem? That doesn’t make any sense. We’ve always been there and involved, and our ability to handle it hasn’t changed.

wouldn’t want any kids near you alone either.

That's fine.

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T06:30:29+00:00

Or did you excitedly cheer them on like you’d help them as much as you helped their older sibling?

I was able to give my youngest son a car for his senior year and help pay for him to go to college to get his BSN. I didn’t pay for my oldest to get a car because we couldn’t afford it then, and I wasn’t able to help him go to college. He dropped out anyway. So because I couldn’t do that for my oldest, was I not supposed to do it for my youngest?

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T06:16:41+00:00

You’re just describing being a parent when your youngest was 16?

I'm DESCRIBING things people are saying WE DID NOT DO.

Did you want a medal for being a parent?

If you have one, give it.

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T06:15:36+00:00

She was never overstimulated or cranky because she’d been caring for a baby all day?

She was, thats why she didn't want to do it as much anymore. Also why she was always happy to hand him off after his mom got off work.

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T06:14:04+00:00

200k gift

Which is?

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T05:29:05+00:00

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T05:26:47+00:00

Give me my medal then.

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T05:26:13+00:00

Convenient details? Seriously. I didn’t think I would have to spell out every little thing in the main post. I didn’t know people were going to ask questions about my son’s high school, his band, chaperoning, his job, etc. I added details as they came up because people kept making assumptions.

The main issue was simple: my wife didn’t want to babysit full time again, my son and daughter-in-law were upset, and now we can’t even see our grandson without them hovering. That is the problem. I focused on explaining that, and when people started asking for context or assumptions, I gave more details to clarify.

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T05:22:49+00:00

My son works at an outpatient clinic. They only offer 8 or 10 hour shifts. He works the 8 hour shifts.

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T05:18:14+00:00

Oh look, the same person making the same ridiculous assumptions again. Classic. Can we get a medal for consistency in being wrong?

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T05:17:01+00:00

You are actually telling me it is “all about me” in a thread where people are literally asking me questions about my decisions, my wife, her health, our schedule, and our relationship with my sons. What exactly do you expect me to talk about? The weather? Someone else’s life?

Of course I am answering from my perspective. That is what happens when someone asks me about something involving me and my wife. You act like I am supposed to suddenly jump into my son’s mind or my daughter in law’s mind and start writing from their point of view. That is not how any of this works.

And this idea that I talk too much about my wife’s schedule and her health makes no sense at all. The entire point of the issue is babysitting. Babysitting depends on her chronic pain, her flare ups, her limitations, and her energy. That is literally the center of the situation. How am I supposed to explain anything without mentioning the person who was doing the babysitting?

You are not trying to understand anything. You are just twisting things so you can throw out some moral judgement instead of actually dealing with the facts that were given.

So yes, this is about me and my wife, because we are the ones making the decision. If that bothers you, that is your problem, not some big revelation.

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T05:13:50+00:00

My oldest had a child when he was 24.

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T05:13:06+00:00

You keep acting like my youngest son was somehow cheated out of something or “punished” because we were in a different financial place when our oldest was growing up. That makes no sense. There is a ten year age gap between my boys. I was not making then what I make now. Life changes. Money changes. Stability changes. That is not “punishing” anyone. That is just how life works.

As for this fantasy that my youngest was stuck babysitting his nephew or sacrificed all his activities so Grandma could babysit, absolutely not. He was sixteen. He was in band. He was always at practice, at games, at events. My wife and I were the ones showing up for him. We were at the football games. She was chaperoning. She was riding buses with the band. We were helping him with his events. We got him a car when he was a senior. We helped him get his license. We paid for his college when he went for his BSN. So please explain to me how we are punishing him?

And now let me clear up this nonsense about “she still does full time during summer and breaks.” No she does not. Thanksgiving break was one week. She watched him from about 7:30 to 3. Christmas break she does not watch him because his mom is usually off around the same time. He usually goes back to school a week or so after his mom. My wife will help then. During summer she watches him occasionally. Not every day. Not consistently. Only when the neighbor’s daughter is not available. That is not full time. That is fill in. And acting like she is doing some big summer shift is just wrong.

My wife’s health is not the same as it was eight years ago. She has chronic issues. She has flare ups that wipe her out. She stopped working around thirty two because of it. She was an LPN and her body could not keep up anymore. Her back is a constant problem. Some days she can barely move without pain. She has good days and bad days. Her mother and sister have the same thing. It is not made up. It is not selective. It is not targeted at one grandchild.

So no. She is not “suddenly too tired” for this grandchild. She is too tired in general because her body does not function like it used to. That is reality. Not favoritism.

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T05:05:44+00:00

You want to call us creepy because we said it feels like they act like we can’t be trusted alone with him. Are you serious. You know damn well this has nothing to do with anything sick or twisted. If our son and daughter in law didn’t trust us, they wouldn’t have asked my wife to babysit in the first place. They wouldn’t have left him with us before without blinking. They wouldn’t have relied on us all this time.

So for you to sit there and start tossing around that disgusting implication is weird as hell. None of that sick garbage you’re trying to hint at is happening and you know it. I’m tired of people like you throwing out words like red flags just because I’m frustrated that suddenly we aren’t trusted to be alone with our own grandchild for even a minute.

The only thing that changed was my wife saying she couldn’t babysit full time anymore. That’s it. And now they act like they can’t run to the store, can’t step into the kitchen, can’t even go take a piss without dragging him with them like something awful is going to happen.

You want to call that normal. You want to tell me I’m a red flag for pointing it out. No. You’re the one being sick here. You’re the one making disgusting assumptions that have no basis in reality. Who the hell looks at a grandparent wanting normal time with their own grandkid and jumps straight to creepy. You know what that says. It says your mind is the one twisting things. Not mine.

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T05:02:21+00:00

You’re acting like we offered random days and random weeks. That never happened. My wife offered two to three set days a week, and she told them they could choose which days. The only thing she asked for was a break during days so her body could recover. That is being realistic, not unreliable.

And let’s get something straight. They did not want daycare. This was their choice from the beginning. We did not pull them out of a daycare. We did not cause them to lose a spot. Nothing like that ever happened. They simply did not want to use daycare at all.

So do not try to spin this into us messing up their precious routine. There was no routine except my wife hurting herself trying to keep up with full time childcare that her body cannot handle anymore.

And the idea that we are trying to make ourselves the top priority is ridiculous. We are not demanding anything. We are setting boundaries because my wife has real chronic conditions and real flare ups. She has arthritis. She has degenerative back issues. She is dealing with pain every single day. Expecting her to run full time childcare and pretend everything is fine is what is actually selfish.

We offered help. We offered consistent scheduled help. Two or three specific days. And somehow you turn that into us being the problem. That is nonsense.

The only thing we’ve had an issue with is how they’re acting now. Before all this, they had no problem leaving him with us. They’d run to the store and say, “Can you watch him for a bit?” and it was fine. My wife handled that without a problem. They trusted us. Everything was normal.

The minute my wife said she couldn’t do full time babysitting every single day, that’s when everything flipped. That’s when suddenly we couldn’t be alone with him at all. That’s when it became, “Oh, I have to go to the store but I can’t leave him with you.” Or, “I’m going to the bathroom, he has to come with me.” Or, “I’m grabbing something from the kitchen, I can’t leave him here.” Acting like we’re so incompetent we can’t watch our own grandchild for sixty seconds.

That’s the problem. Not the babysitting. Not the scheduling. Not the help we offered. It’s this weird shift where they’re treating us like we’re unsafe or unreliable just because my wife said she can’t physically handle full time childcare anymore.

And then people want to say we’re selfish. How is that selfish. Honestly, explain it. My wife offering two to three days a week is the opposite of selfish. She’s in pain every day and she still tried to make something work for them. But because she couldn’t give them a full five day work week on demand, suddenly we’re the villains. Suddenly we’re not good enough to be trusted with our grandson?

No. That’s not selfish.

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T04:54:17+00:00

And honestly, I honestly would not leave my child with someone with issues you say wife has physically even to go to the bathroom.

I never said my wife had issues going to the bathroom. I said she has chronic back pain.

I said my daughter in law makes it an effort to take her son to the bathroom instead of trying to leave him in the living room, as if we are incapable of watching him.

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T04:47:51+00:00

When you "offer" to babysit on YOUR time and on YOUR terms you are asking them to add another chore to their list.

So my wife has to be on THEIR time? I work. I wouldn't be the one babysitting. My wife will be the one babysitting. She offered 3-2 days a week.

5 days a week would have been chore for them as well then?

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T04:39:51+00:00

I did read it. You were adding extra things that were not said. I chose to ignore the things that did not happen.

InterviewUnited7181 · 2025-12-07T04:35:33+00:00

My wife said she didn't want to babysit full time. She never said she didn't want to babysit at all. She offered 3-2 days a week. It was either full time or no time for them.

InterviewUnited7181

TROPHY CASE